Butuan City – International development aid continues to pour in Caraga region as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) enters into a partnership with the Australian government through its overseas aid program AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development) for community-driven development (CDD) projects.

Certain local government units (LGUs) that submitted proposals for the construction of elementary and high school buildings and day care centers will receive funding from AusAID for these sub-projects.

AusAID is setting a fund limit of Php800,000 for each project proposal submitted by 88 barangays that will receive this grant.

The program will focus on the non-prioritized barangays of DSWD’s anti-poverty project Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS). Communities that did not receive funding for their proposed educational facilities during the three-year cycle implementation of Kalahi-CIDSS in their municipality will also be considered for this program.

The same Kalahi-CIDSS-World Bank procedures will be adopted by AusAID in implementing the program, with beneficiary communities preparing the financial documents and managing the subsequent construction of the infrastructures themselves, through a group of volunteers from the barangay.

Sixteen municipalities in Caraga region that went on to become champion areas of Kalahi-CIDSS for the past eight years will be named beneficiaries once the performance assessment will be done.

Community-driven development (CDD) is an approach adopted by Kalahi-CIDSS whereby participating communities are given the power to choose, prioritize, plan, co-finance, implement, monitor and maintain their development projects. ### (Social Marketing Unit)